Johnny
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George Dennis Carlin was a Grammy winning Irish American stand-up comedian, actor, and author, noted especially for his irreverent attitude and his observations on language, psychology and religion along with many other taboo subjects. He is considered by many to be a successor to the late Lenny Bruce.
It began in 1970 on a typical September night in Las Vegas, as the early show went on at Howard Hughes' Frontier Hotel. The men and the mink-draped women in the theater appeared equally prosperous and provincial. A sign at the theater entrance read, WELCOME, AWARD-WINNING SALESMEN.
The opening act that night was a 32-year-old comedian named George Carlin. Although most had never heard of him, a few members of the audience remembered seeing him on John Davidson's summer replacement TV series - a conventional stand-up performer who did cute voices and jokes about his New York childhood. Vegas regulars knew Carlin better: He'd been an opening act at the Frontier for three years, was a reliable pro who earned $12,500 a week.
On that night, when Carlin glared out at the audience with what appeared to be a combination of loathing and resolve, most people either didn't notice or thought he'd forgotten his contact lenses. When he opened with a dissertation on the number of ways to say "shit," the audience fell silent. Carlin's next routine was about Vietnam, and that's when people started walking out. Before he'd finished a piece on American business ethics, half the room was empty and the others remained only to heckle him. At a few tables, angry men were restrained from rushing the stage.
In one night, the big-money, mainstream show-business career that Carlin had worked ten years to build was over. He went back to where he'd started - to the small clubs and coffeehouses, working for nothing; and with the help of unemployment compensation, he did the routines that had got him thrown out of Las Vegas. But the folk and college audiences loved them. Carlin's dazzling wordplay was lauded by critics, who compared him to H.L. Mencken and Alexander Woollcott, and his withering attacks on religion, big business, and the Vietnam war made him a counterculture hero. Between 1971 and 1976, Carlin toured constantly and recorded five albums.
Then, as suddenly as his meteoric "second career" had begun, it ended. At the height of his popularity and income, Carlin took himself out of action. For the next five years, except for an occasional stint as guest host of "The Tonight Show" - where he'd appear competent, but uncomfortable - Carlin left his public wondering what had happened. There were rumors of a drug problem and personal problems; a couple of years ago, word began circulating that he'd suffered a heart attack.
But in November 1981, a brand-new Carlin album - his first in seven years - was released, quickly followed by the announcement that he had signed a multiyear cable-TV contract with Home Box Office and was writing a book and a movie. As abruptly and mysteriously as he'd disappeared, he returned.
Carlin was born in New York City in 1937 and when he was two months old, his parents separated. He was raised by a working mother, by the other street kids in his "white Harlem" neighborhood, by New York's parochial school system, and by the radio. At the age of five, he decided to become a radio announcer, a comedian, and an actor.
Always a "discipline problem," Carlin quit high school to join the Air Force, where he was court-martialed twice and eventually discharged 11 months early. But by then he'd become a disc jockey at an off-base radio station, and the long-range career plan he had laid out for himself at the age of five was begun.
In 1960, Carlin teamed with a young newscaster named Jack Burns and began doing a comedy act at small clubs and folk rooms. Within months, Burns and Carlin were "discovered" by Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl. Although the team broke up in 1962, Carlin's career continued its ascent. By the late Sixties, he'd appeared on many TV shows, co-starred in a network show, and had established himself as one of the top opening acts in Las Vegas. Unknown to Carlin throughout this "straight comic" period was a prediction made by Bruce: George Carlin would one day assume Bruce's throne as king of the social comics.
Then, on that September night in Las Vegas, Carlin abandoned the straight comedy he did so well, but no longer believed in, and finally made good on Bruce's prophecy. And, ironically, that change made him even more successful than he'd ever been before. But there were problems, most of them stemming from Carlin's obsessive involvement with c*****e. Finally, in 1976, with his 15-year marriage, his 13-year-old daughter, and his own 25-year history of drug abuse closing in on him, Carlin, for the second time in his life, reined in a galloping career that had somehow gotten away from him.
Years of therapy followed. Then a heart attack. Finally, at the age of 44, Carlin emerged straight and sober, with his health and family intact. We sent New York journalist Sam Merrill (whose previous "Playboy Interviews" have included those with Ed Asner, Roy Scheider, Karl Hess, Joseph Heller, and Roone Arledge) to visit Carlin as he prepared to launch what he himself has called his "third career." Merrill reports:
"The electronic gates of Carlin's Brentwood home swung back and I cruised up the driveway. Numerous dogs and cats - each with its own unique and somewhat bizarre charm, none a purebred - wandered past. There were three cars in the driveway: Carlin's BMW, his wife's Mercedes, and a 1948 Plymouth, an old bomb. Behind the cars, Carlin was shooting baskets. I pointed to the Plymouth and asked if he were a collector. 'Naw, some guy left it here last spring and hasn't been back since.'
"After shooting a few hoops together, we entered his office - a small building between the house and the garage - pulled up a couple of chairs and, before I could ask my first question, Carlin said, 'I've been thinking about this interview and, I don't know, I'm afraid I'm not going to have very much to say."
"He was right in one sense - Carlin rarely tells biographical anecdotes for their own sake. He is much more interested in what he is thinking than in what he is doing; the events of his life are related only as background to his impressions and opinions. But he is a man with a carefully thought-out opinion on almost everything. So instead of a biography, what emerged was a complex and often comical internal monolog in the voice of the Carlin character speaking. Every time he related his own thoughts, he did so in the voice of the side of himself dominant at that moment: the Irish street kid, the ludicrously self-important performer, the dope fiend, the wide-eyed observer of life. It all poured out with incredible ease. Although most 'Playboy Interview' subjects find it helpful to vary the scenery from one session to another, Carlin and I did seven sessions over two weeks totaling 15 hours of tape in those same two chairs. It's the interior landscape that interests him, and his windows to that panorama are always open."
At least we still have his specials and CDs though. He lives on through his work. 
